The Third Estate Sunday Review focuses on politics and culture. We're an online magazine. We don't play nice and we don't kiss butt. In the words of Tuesday Weld: "I do not ever want to be a huge star. Do you think I want a success? I refused "Bonnie and Clyde" because I was nursing at the time but also because deep down I knew that it was going to be a huge success. The same was true of "Bob and Carol and Fred and Sue" or whatever it was called. It reeked of success."

Monday, September 07, 2015

Editorial: Slapped in the face by reality

For over a year now, Antiwar.com and its chief counter Margaret Griffis rendered every death by a bombing (on the day they counted the bombing) as killing 'militants' or 'terrorists.'

Even though they had no proof.

Even though they couldn't back it up.

Even though all they had was official statements from government officials.

As last week wound down, Antiwar.com and Griffith got slapped upside the face by a heavy dose of reality.

Alice Ross (Guardian) reported on the latest disclosure of civilian deaths:The US-led coalition’s bombing of Islamic State
in Iraq and Syria, which has been described as the “most precise ever”,
faces allegations that civilians have been killed in 71 separate air
raids.A spokesman for US central command (Centcom) disclosed the claims to
the Guardian. Many of the claims have been dismissed, but he said 10
incidents were the subject of fuller, formal investigations. Five
investigations have been concluded, although only one has been
published.To date, the coalition acknowledges civilian deaths in a single
strike: in November 2014 a US strike on Syria killed two children, a
Centcom investigation published
in May found. Centcom said it will only publish investigations where a
“preponderance of evidence” suggests civilians have died.Monitoring groups questioned how thorough the investigations were.

An English-speaking Peshmerga soldier told
the U.S. military that as many as 27 civilians died during aerial
bombardment by Canadian pilots, American military documents show.

However,
the Canadian military made it clear to the United States shortly after
the alleged incident that it felt no obligation under the Geneva
Conventions to probe what happened, the Pentagon records show. “It
should be noted that Canadian Joint Operations Command [legal advisers]
opinion is that, under the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) there are no
obligations for the Canadian Armed Forces to conduct an investigation,”
the documents say.

It shouldn't have taken these exposures to prove how wrong Antiwar.com was to promote the claims of officials as facts.

Like the US government, Antiwar.com refused to think about where the bombs land.

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Jim, Dona, Jess, Ty, "Ava" started out this site as five students enrolled in journalism in NY. Now? We're still students. We're in CA. Journalism? The majority scoffs at the notion.
From the start, at the very start, C.I. of The Common Ills has helped with the writing here. C.I.'s part of our core six/gang. (C.I. and Ava write the TV commentaries by themselves.) So that's the six of us. We also credit Dallas as our link locator, soundboard and much more. We try to remember to thank him each week (don't always remember to note it here) but we'll note him in this. So this is a site by the gang/core six: Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I. (of The Common Ills).